re: Arsenal 2012/2013 Season Long Thread

I'm not saying that Jenkinson would've necessarily played BETTER than Sagna over the last month or two, I am saying that that time would be better spent developing jenkinson (who is honestly approaching or equal to Sagna @ 30 anyways) than stagnating with a route that we are obviously going to get rid of over the summer.

Now we'll have jenks starting in the fall after not playing for 9 months instead.

I think he's been unfairly criticized because of the one game where he had two errors leading to goals. Clearly, he isn't what he used to be, but he's still very good. Opta did a comparison of his and Jenkinson's stats a month or so ago and Sagna was better at everything and significantly better defensively. I think we need to worry about 4th more than Jenkinson's development at this point and Sagna is clearly the better option at the moment.

quote:Also, please don't use FIFA ratings as a serious way to evaluate players.

Sigh I knew you would have a reaction like that. I wasn't using them, as a matter of fact I have no idea what their actual fifa ratings are I was just using that as a comparison to show how close I think they are, which was pretty clear in what I said but I know people tend to see what they want to see.

An 11% difference in duels won is pretty huge and the aerial duels is key for us considering our struggles there.

Sure, you can see whatever you want to see. Like for some reason, you all saw Sagna played terrible yesterday. I think it's borderline crazy to have wanted 21-yr old, rarely playing Jenkinson out there in a huge Champions League match against Ribery who is in the form of his life as opposed to Sagna.

I don't understand why you used an imaginary FIFA rating, but if you wanted to, I'd point out Jenkinson was skinned by Stephane Sessegnon his last time out and got sent off, so that plus the fact he's started 2 matches in the past 2 months would mean he would be trending downward.

Wrong - I never said he was the cause of our troubles. I did however say that our offensive strategy of feeding the ball out to Sagna and him failing to ever get any semblance of a decent cross in was a major problem.

quote: have wanted 21-yr old, rarely playing Jenkinson out there in a huge Champions League match against Ribery

Rarely playing why again? oh yeah. Also don't forget they had a 20 year old RB out there against Walcott.

re: Arsenal 2012/2013 Season Long Thread(Posted by Jumbeauxlaya on 2/20/13 at 12:23 pm to Tweezy)

All I was saying there was that saying Jenks is 21 isn't some huge strike against him that prevents him from playing in big champions leagues games. A good example of this is directly opposite of him on the pitch.

I shouldn't have used age, because clearly there are exceptions. Though Jenks' resume compared to Alaba or Jack's...well there is no comparison. He's not on that level. He's got minimal first team experience and throwing him out against Ribery would've been borderline suicidal. Sagna is better, more experienced in big matches, and has gone up against Ribery countless times in the French set-up. It was a no-brainer to start him.

As for your crosses comment, what good would that have done us with Theo up front? It was wise of him not to pump in hopeless crosses. That decision is more indicative of the failed strategy (starting Theo instead of Giroud after we've gotten used to knocking it up to him) than any failure on Sagna's part.

I'm not sure where you keep getting these thoughts from of what I do or don't think.

I don't think we should have "thrown Jenkinson out there" for this match without much experience, I am however suggesting that we should have left him out there even when Sagna came back from his injury after about 10 matches.

He was playing great and there was zero reason to make the swap, Sagna isn't some amazing RB anymore, he's good and mostly just at defense. Jenkinson has his workrate and probably beats his speed (+offensively) and is young enough that he is definitely still improving.

Also yes some of the offensive blame is on Sagna's inability to put in a decent cross, but everyone knows he can't do that so it's the definition of stupidity for us to keep forcing the ball out to him (I saw the midfielders and CB's constantly pointing to him to direct the rest of the team that way, so clearly it was a "plan")

Hopefully that's typed clearly enough that it comes across on here, I never claimed to be an excellent writer but this is getting ridiculous.

Ok, I misinterpreted your specific remarks, which were merely criticisms of Sagna's play yesterday and praise of Jenkinson's, that you'd rather Jenkinson had played yesterday.

Jenkinson didn't deserve to displace Sagna. This wasn't an Ashley Cole/Sylvinho situation. There was certainly more than zero reasons for Sagna to come back into the side. Jenkinson played well. His start to the season was promising for the future. Sagna was very, very good last year, and has been throughout his Arsenal career. He was healthy and ready to go and Jenkinson hadn't overwhelmed to the point he was a must-include in the lineup. Looking at how it has played out, which shouldn't be included in the analysis to re-include him at the time, Sagna certainly hasn't been as good as he has in the past. He's had one horrible match, one really great match (at CB, though) but mainly just been solid. Considering the fragility of our defense and need for experience in the squad, I had no problems with Sagna starting and I still don't. Jenkinson was solid for 10 games at the start of the season (after being awful last year) but was starting to level out a bit at the end of that run. That shouldn't be enough to displace the best RB we've had in awhile, even if he isn't as good as he has been.

Sagna's dip in form is reason not to re-sign him based on his current career trajectory. That said, Jenkinson still hasn't shown me enough for him to be handed the keys to our RB spot. Now or next season. I hope we sign an experienced RB in the summer.

Just two more quick points, those two yellows are his only cards this season and he was our rb at the beginning of the season when people were raving about our defense being the second coming of the invincibles

The only benefit would've been long term. Can't bitch about our short term failings if we're ditching our best defender over the past few years for an unproven player. Also, benching Sagna would've lost him entirely. Would've caused dressing room issues and screwed us if CJ had struggled.